1. Technical Field
The present invention pertains to cleats for use with shoes worn on turf and other surfaces. In particular, the present invention pertains to a golf cleat that provides traction on various types of surfaces and for specific purposes.
2. Discussion of Related Art
The need for providing improved traction elements for the soles of shoes on turf surfaces is well known in the art, particularly in the field of sports such as football, baseball, soccer and golf. In many sports, particularly golf, the need for providing improved traction elements must be considered in combination with limiting the wear and tear on the playing turf that can be caused by the traction elements.
In recent years, there has been a change from using penetrating metal spikes for golf shoes to removable plastic cleats that are much more turf-friendly and less harmful to clubhouse floor surfaces. However, the challenge with utilizing plastic cleats is to design a cleat having suitable traction on turf surfaces while being suitably protected from wear and tear due to contact with hard surfaces such as asphalt or concrete.
An example of a removable plastic cleat having desirable traction characteristics is described and illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,167,641 (McMullin), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In the McMullin patent there is disclosed a removable cleat having a hub with an upper surface facing the shoe sole and a bottom surface facing away from the sole. A hub attachment member extends from the upper surface for attaching the hub to one of plural sole-mounted attachment means. Traction elements extend outwardly and downwardly from the hub, each traction element being deflectably attached to the hub so that it pivotally and resiliently deflects toward the sole when it encounters a hard surface. When used on grass or turf, the traction element deflection results in grass blades being trapped between the upper surface of the traction elements and the sole of the shoe, thereby grabbing the grass blades and providing the desired traction function. In addition, the deflection serves to minimize abrasive wear of the traction elements on hard surfaces such as golf paths. Importantly, the traction elements do not penetrate the surface on which they are used, thereby minimizing damage to the turf. Although this cleat is effective for the purpose described, improvements are desirable in certain aspects of the cleat performance. For example, on hard surfaces such as found in a tee box, dirt path, concrete, asphalt, tile, etc., the deflecting traction elements provide only minimal, if any, traction since each traction element is designed to spread and flex on the ground surface.
Another removable plastic cleat for golf shoes is disclosed in WO 01/54528 to Japana Co., LTD. The Japana golf shoe cleat includes a plurality of long and short legs protruding outwardly from a body of the cleat to contact a turf surface when connected to the sole of a shoe. The long legs and short legs are disposed along a periphery of the cleat body in an alternating configuration, where one or more long legs are provided between two adjacent short legs. The long legs are provided to provide traction on turf whereas the short legs press down hard on the grass and chiefly support the weight bearing on the cleat. The Japana cleat is limited in that it only discloses symmetrically alternating long and short legs extending from the shoe sole. Thus, the axially symmetric Japana cleat is not capable of being indexed or oriented in different positions with respect to the shoe sole in order to selectively position the weight bearing shorter legs and the penetrating longer legs in different alignments based upon cleat applications requiring different directions and levels of traction.
It is therefore desirable to provide a cleat that minimizes damage to turf surfaces yet provides suitable traction for the shoe on harder surfaces as well as different levels of traction at different portions of the shoe based upon selected orientations of the shoe cleat with respect to the shoe sole.
Therefore, in light of the above, and for other reasons that become apparent when the invention is fully described, an object of the present invention is to provide a shoe cleat with enhanced traction while minimizing damage to turf surfaces.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a shoe cleat that does not easily wear on hard surfaces such as concrete or asphalt yet provides a suitable level of traction for such hard surfaces.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a shoe cleat that is indexable to facilitate a variety of orientations of the cleat with respect to the shoe sole.
The aforesaid objects are achieved individually and in combination, and it is not intended that the present invention be construed as requiring two or more of the objects to be combined unless expressly required by the claims attached hereto.
In accordance with the present invention, an indexable shoe cleat is provided including a hub with at least one dynamic traction element and at least one static traction element extending from an exposed surface of the hub and away from the sole of a shoe when the cleat is secured to the shoe sole, where the traction elements are asymmetrically positioned about a central axis of the hub. The dynamic traction element is configured to deflect toward the shoe sole when the shoe engages a ground surface to reduce damage to turf surfaces as well as to minimize wear and tear to the cleat on harder surfaces. The static traction element is configured to substantially resist deflection when the shoe engages the ground surface and to provide a suitable bearing for supporting weight applied to the shoe. A cleat connector is preferably disposed on a surface of the hub that opposes the exposed surface to connect the cleat to the shoe sole. The cleat connector is suitably configured to connect the cleat to the shoe sole so as to align each of the static and dynamic traction elements in a desired orientation with respect to the shoe. A plurality of shoe cleats may further be selectively indexed on the shoe to vary the orientations of the traction elements of each cleat with respect to the shoe sole based upon a particular application and/or user preference.
The above and still further objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon consideration of the following definitions, descriptions and descriptive figures of specific embodiments thereof wherein like reference numerals in the various figures are utilized to designate like components. While these descriptions go into specific details of the invention, it should be understood that variations may and do exist and would be apparent to those skilled in the art based on the descriptions herein.